Excuse me, what do you do?

How often have you been asked the most natural of questions from the person sitting next to you. “What do you do?”  Some of us take offence – you mean you don’t know who I am?  Others pause – I have done so much, wear so many hats, where do I begin?  For whatever reason, the best and most accurate description of what we do often escapes us at these crucial moments when we network.  We end up relying on the easiest way out, presenting the tired name-card, thinking the title or titles there will do the talking just fine.
In the corporate world of who’s who, many of us rely on our marketing departments to brand us.  We have confidence that our PR machines are well-oiled, our resumes tip top, our websites updated.  So anyone who is interested in us should know who we are right?  Not really.

All that constitutes your “image” out there are just that, your “press release”.  And really, how much of these can we take at face value these days?  Too often we forget the importance of face-to-face meetings.  What a person thinks about you is fluid, it changes based on your daily interactions, how small things surprise and become big things.  Every greeting, meeting, phone call, email, (with not just your peers but also those who have no influence in your work) sends a message of who you are and what you are about.  Why do you think President Obama’s popularity rating is like the graph of a heart attack patient?

Your brand is a living thing.  There is no textbook guide to brand you – we are all different.  But there are some principles you can internalise.  And that’s what so good about self-marketing, you actually watch yourself carefully and correct and change your behavioural pattern.  Self-marketing can actually guide you to become the person you want to be.

Sure exchange name-cards.  But a name-card is just a hard piece of paper.  In social functions, you can exchange cards as many as 20 times.  How do you know yours is not the one in the rubbish bin?  And the truth is, a name-card is not who you really are.  You are often more or less than what is printed on it.  And these days, anyone can put anything on a card.

If  you have done enough in your career that you are proud of, you owe it to yourself to market yourself well.  Like most of you, I think my work should speak for itself.  But I have since learned this is a “I am good” eats “I am better” corporate world.  We hear and read about the rich and famous, like movie stars we love.  How do you know they do not possess black belts in self-marketing?

So, when you are dressed to impress, with wine in one hand and finger-food in the other, you should not leave self-marketing to the balancing act of chance.  You need to take your brand seriously so that what’s said between sips of wine doesn’t smack of self-promotion or under-whelm the curious questioner.

The foundation of self-marketing for me is knowing myself and knowing myself really well.  I encourage friends to be honest with me (not easy but over time I accept even the harshest opinions).  What I do is put that knowledge in a succinct paragraph that speaks of me positively and honestly.  Then I re-write that paragraph in a few different ways – but all putting out the same positive message truthfully, coming directly and effortlessly from deep inside me.  These are the foundations, the pillars that support the ME I want others to know.  I have been surprised.  What I thought was just “doing my job” impressed even surprised people.  So I stop taking myself for granted and start to “own” what I do.

When the question is asked, instead of thinking or trying to find phrases and words to define me, I reach into that reservoir I have prepared.  Pick one and introduce myself matter-of-factly.  Another person listening may ask further questions, and that’s when the other ways of introducing me come in.  Before I know it, I have effectively marketed myself with different turn of phrases and words, all conveying the same message – the me I want people to know, and still have my wits about to enjoy the entertainment, good food and wine being served.

There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to describing what we do.  But we should keep it simple (it can be just three or four sentences), enough to stir the curiosity of the listener to actually want to know more.  “I am a lawyer.”  Ok, the conversation moves right along.  “I run a law firm and our focus is on the entertainment industry.”  Freeze.  “Who do you represent?” is likely the comeback.  So lay out just enough tantalizing information and they’ll ask for more.

Even if you are a famous personality, don’t feel insulted.  Famous people are not always recognised in real life.  In fact, when you are humble, you can get reactions that reinforce your brand.  “Oh my god, you are THE lawyer my friend told me to look out for?”  You never know, a life-changing opportunity may come knocking on your designer door.

The one thing NOT to do is lie.  Sooner or later everyone can spot a phony, and when the phony mask falls off, you lose one of your most important pillars to marketing yourself – your credibility.  I have seen this happen to people I know.  They embellished, added asides that I knew didn’t exist.  Truth is not negotiable so don’t hide it.  One way or another, it has a way of showing up.  In this Internet age, all of us can be googled, and with powerful broadband access and mobile devices, we can be searched even while we speak.

A good self-marketer is also not a snob.  It’s nice to be important but it’s more important to be nice.  Even if you are a famous personality or a CEO of a big chain, don’t dismiss the mousey-looking, bespectacled person sitting next to you.  You’ll never know, he or she could be working for Warren Buffet.

And finally, the importance of marketing yourself goes back to not only the first principle of really knowing who you are but also not being afraid of who you are.  You want to market yourself because you have already achieved something worthwhile, however “small” that may be in your mind, and you want to share that with others.  While you need to be humble, you also need to be clear what is it you want to share, what is the essence that is characteristically you.  Oprah’s essence is her ability to use her “weaknesses” shared by many women and turn them into strengths.  “So what if we are fat?”  Singapore’s essence is, “Our system works.  Never mind who or what they call it.”  Not everyone will agree with your essence, your “reason-to-be”.  But when you believe in it like you believe the sun will rise again, you will succeed in branding and marketing the true you.  Being real is the strongest empowerment tool.  Because when it comes to your own brand, no one knows it better than you.

“I love Hitler” – heard across the world from a bar.

Reading about how the lauded Dior designer creatively self-destruct, it gets me thinking about free speech.  There is free speech, and then there is free speech, otherwise, why would John  Galliano be looking at 6 months jail (sure his “I love Hitler” rant is anti-Semitic) while the likes of Mel Gibson and Charlie Sheen continue to be invited to talk-shows and continue to stay in the spot light of media?

I guess we live in different parts of the world, and our different politics and laws either protect or expose us.  But the emergence of social media is leveling the playing field, at least in exposing those who have traditionally been shielded and protected by subservient media, for better or worse.

In a private conversation in a Parisian bar, Galliano said three words that reverberated loudly across the world.  “I love Hitler” would have been politically incorrect but not illegal if uttered in the US, or any other part of the world. But in a Europe still wearing raw scares of its contemporary history, those three words are the ultimate anti-Semitic stabs of a yet-to-heal soul.  Hate speech about the Holocaust cuts to the deepest level of anti-Semitism, and Galliano, however bizarre, should have know better.  Sure Galliano was drunk, but in this new media world, he lost his job and his reputation (from all sources, I understand he is extremely talented).  Even though he has aplogoised and promised to seek help, he will be on trial for racial hatred.

With social media, what is private can very easily be public, national international.  Welcome to the new global “media community”.  If you are a public figure, even a liquored-up rant will cost you dearly in the age of smart phones and other mobile devices.  But really it can happen to anyone.  Even YOU.

I know of many friends who are practically in denial. They see themselves as “nobodies” and there is no chance of them ever being “caught” in any kind of media exposure.  They snap shots and upload them onto their Facebook with abandon.  In their communities, no one gives a hoot what they do.  They say they are not in “the media”.

Well, if you have a mobile device, use the internet or have family members or friends who are in Facebook (at last count there are more than 2 million active Facebook users in Singapore, that’s almost half the population) – sorry, you are part of the global media community.

In Singapore, some of you may be familiar with the YouTube video of a housewife caning a puppy.  The puppy had chewed on the sofa and in the video she is seen caning her pup while family members’ voices are heard in the background trying to restrain her.  The video caused a wave of anger among denizens of cyberspace and animal lovers demanding the puppy to be rescued and its owner punished.  AVA investigated and she was given a stern warning.  If convicted of animal cruelty, the unsuspecting housewife could have been fined $10,000 and imprisoned for 12 months.

Who videotaped her?  And how did it get uploaded onto YouTube?  It turned out a family member did.  This is one of many examples where so-called “nobodies” are exposed in the media in the most public way.  The family member probably didn’t think much of uploading the video that caused serious consequences for the mother. That was because he or she didn’t understand the changed media landscape and how powerful video with shock value can be.  The same way the hate-speech was spread and circulated in the Web in Galliano’s case.

I used the term “media community” because new or social media and traditional media are now so integrated you cannot separate them anymore.  The case of the housewife caning the pup caused waves in the online communities and it was reported in both the print and broadcast media.  Galliano’s case circulated in social media and was quickly crowned in prime time European TV and made it to covers of European papers.  Within the day, it was global news.

Being in the media for more than 25 years, witnessing the almost cancerous growth of platforms, the one constant I know that has not changed, or have become even more crucial is CONTENT.  Content has always been king and now more so than ever.  New and old platforms feed on each others’ content.

Yes, create content for these hungry platforms.  But know you are part of this global media community.  We may live in different parts of the world, some of us are protected by, others bear the brunt of, laws and rules of our countries.  Some of us enjoy more freedom of speech than others.  But even in the intimacy of a bar in France, the country that cradled freedom and liberty, an utterance that goes against “correctness” can ripple across the global media.

So enjoy being part of the global media community.  But celebrate and revel with caution.  Know the flip side of joy is pain.  You can be an overnight sensation like Susan Boyle or walk out like Galliano.

Welcome to my first blog the content taken from a much longer speech I gave about media.  If you are interested in issues of the media, drop in now and then.  I like comments.  I am also an art writer, so if you want tips or trends of the art world, especially Asian art, visit my blogs.  I write on emerging and established artists, trends and big art events of the exploding contemporary art scene in Asia.